Qardo: At The Crossroads of Destiny....

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[SW Column] ( Burhan Y.Warsame & Mohamed Daray ) Qardo: At the crossroads of destiny :Posted on 2 Aug 2002

Opinions expressed in this column are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of SW.

Qardo: At the crossroads of destiny

By Burhan Yassin Warsame (Dantay) & Mohamed Daray

Qardo: At the crossroads of destiny I wish to begin this article by quoting from the source of inspiration a poem by the late poet Khalif Sheikh Mohamoud, a famous son of Qardho. The poet reminds us the pain and despair of those days when the Somali government who were supposed to be the custodians of the people brutally repressed the people of Puntland. Khalif draws a real picture of the anguish of the time. "

Majeerteen ilaah wuxuu ka dhigay malab sidiisiiye "
Sida miraha doocaan ka baxa muudsay aadmiguye "
Nin waliba wuxuu mihindisaa inuu magawshaaye "
Caruuraha maryaadahaya iyo dumarkan mawleeyay "
OO mudanayaashii jeclaa mawdka laga yeelay "
Dadku mawdka wayska ogolyoo maalin bow qorane "
Mowdkiiyo raqdoodii miyaa laga dul maansooday "
Sidii waxaan muslim ahayn miyaa musibo loo laayay "
Madfac iyo rasaastii miyaa meel kastaba gaaray It is just as haunting in English "
It may be lord's ordain will that the Majeerteen should be consumed likehoney "
Like the wild berries in the plain of Do'aan, the Majeerteen have been universally and greedily devoured "
very hunger man in the land desires to bite off a piece of flesh from the prostrated body of the Majeerteens "
These weeping orphans, these widowed Majeerteen wives, despoiled and stripped of their herds "
Whose beloved fathers have been wantonly slaughtered "
Humans cannot but accept their morality, decreed as it is by the inflexible law of Allah "
What is hard to accept is the gloating of the oppressor over the scattered Majeerteen corpses. "
And they have heinously massacred as if they did not belong to the family of the Muslims. "
Did not Mr. Barre everywhere mercilessly rain mortar shells and bullets on the Majeerteens

Qardo is not the centre of our destruction, but the core of our greatness. It is where the kings hailed from, who in Somali history were unmatched. It produced more famous names than its relative size and was seen like the Bari town of Bender-Qasim the rightful home of the Harti nobility. Yet today Qardo is an epicentre of activity it's famous inhabitants being used as pawns, by treacherous plotters who plan to destroy. They plan to destroy Puntland, its dignity its people and they want to do this spectacularly using the sons of our most illustrious fathers. Can it be that as the rest of Somali's see it a place for our demise?

Is Qardo as they assume the Leningrad of Abdullahi Yusuf? Or will it once again be at the forefront of saving the people of the land of Punt. Where is the sanity in fighting where is the sense in pursuing struggle, who are we struggling against? Is it easier to wage war against our own brother than it is to fight your foe? Is it easier to sabre rattle in Qardo than it is to stop the oppressors in Kismayu?

To fight a man and to contest a leadership challenge is understandable but to fight your kin for the sake of fake leaders is more than questionable. Shame is, those who rant and rave in the name of religion and hide behind the cloak of the clan. They have no alternative, no other route but to pit brother against brother.

They have no shame when they listen blindly to the ranting of Abdiqasin as he encourages his kinsmen to attack and reinforce their grip on Kismayu. They turn a blind eye when consignments of weapons are sent from Mogadishu to further destabilise Puntland. While we all know that Ethiopia is no friend of Somalia, who can deny that Arta is no friend of Puntland? It must be clear that we are being used, that those hapless leaders who sleep with the enemy are conspiring to our eventual destruction.

Sleeping with the enemy is a term that perfectly describes the situation some self-appointed leaders are in. They sleep, conspire, collude and encourage a man who has professed publicly his hate for Puntland and its people. Abdiqasin Salad Xasan, a man who needs no introduction, who famously insulted in front of a mass audience, the most famous personalities from our region. He described men like the late president Shermarke and General Abshir as being no more than the anointed help of the Italian colonisers. Further blaming Somali's problem on Puntlanders he spared no one politician or academic names like General Matukade, Dr. Yasin Osman Kenadeed, kept on repeated by his ever appalling mouth using extreme adage, he re-enforced his lack of knowledge. How he must laugh when he sees men like King Kong, Xasan Abshir and others doing his biding and calling this clown "His Excellency the presiden".

I do intend the words above to be controversial I do intend the reader to understand that what I am conveying is the truth. These hijackers of the Somali peace process, these men who profess to hate are not as worse as those who are hated and cannot do a thing. We have problems and the current Puntland leadership I agree is not helping, but there must be other routes than to make Qardo a battlefield. There must be another way than to work for the wishes of Abdiqasin and his henchmen.

The pride of the region will be restored when we are united and together, the people will remove the strongman when there is an alternative. We need to unite our intellectuals and religious folks. We need to engage ourselves in open and real dialogue. We must discuss and solve the outstanding issues and heal the rift between us, between the religious leaders and politicians. We need to rise above our differences so that I, you, we and the future generation can look forward instead of only dreaming of a past.

Puntland has great potential. It is a defensive entity rather than offensive it is a real model to overcome the irresponsible days of the dictatorship. Puntland is Somali unlike the other state; it is part and parcel of Somalia. It is not an Ethiopian created Bantustan as some would claim. It has achieved a great deal without outside help and it is growing at a speed unravelled in the rest of the country. It has relative peace and is something to be proud of, yet it can only be dismantled and destroyed by the very people who have created it.

For those who lack vision, peace in Qardho means peace in Puntland, which also means peace in Somalia. The sum is greater than its parts.

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that the source of the poem is from Dr. Said Samatar's book titled "Somalia: A Nation in Turmoil" By Burhan Yassin Warsame (Dantay)
& Mohamed Daray

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